Contemporary Challenges to Authority

SW 61-Contemporary Challenges to Authority

Contact: julieta.rabanos@udg.edu

Convenor: Julieta Agustina Rabanos 

Keywords

authority, practical and epistemic authority, national and non-national jurisdiction, human and non-human agency, authority and AI, legitimacy

Abstract

Authority in law has been traditionally conceived as (1) public authority, (2) claiming political, practical, and comprehensive authority over (3) natural persons within (4) a certain national (physical) jurisdiction context. In other words: a political organisation claiming the ultimate right to interfere with the autonomy of people within a certain territory what to do regarding every aspect of their lives and expecting comprehensive compliance from them even if they disagree. This is the case in most traditional political theory and philosophy and in much of the most well-known and respected contemporary legal philosophy.

However, the increasing complexity of contemporary political and legal phenomena over the last decades has given rise to a very different picture. Now, there are multiple authorities that claim (1) non-public authority, (2) not political (practical) but technical (epistemic) authority; (3) not a comprehensive but a limited authority; (4) not only direct authority vis-à-vis natural persons but, for instance, vis-à-vis legal persons or nonhuman animals; or that (5) are not necessarily backed –or constituted– by natural persons; and where new and more complex jurisdictional contexts, (6) not necessarily limited to national jurisdictions, and (7) not necessarily limited to physical territories, are becoming steadily more and more relevant. This complexity stems, among other things, from accelerated international and regional integration processes, solidified globalisation, the rising of key private actors in national and non-national contexts, technological advances and increasingly technical and scientific complexity, variations in considerations of legal personhood, and the outbreak of non-physical legal jurisdictions. The unprecedented global situation triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the outbreak of artificial intelligence and large language models, and the developments that have led to the ‘Metaverse’ are just three very recent examples of this complexity.

As a result, on the one hand, crucial challenges have been increasingly posited to traditional authorities and the traditional model of authority: how do national and non-national public comprehensive authorities articulate? How does the recognition of subjects as being factually non-equal in autonomy, agency, or rationality (e.g., for gender- or diversity-related reasons) affect claims of authority? Is it possible to recognise nonhuman beings (e.g., nonhuman animals or nature) as subjects of authority? Can there be a nonhuman authority (e.g., an artificial intelligence) over human subjects? Is a single principle of legitimacy enough to account for these diversities? On the other hand, non-traditional authorities have been steadily emerging and gaining great importance. They range from public authority claiming non-comprehensive, technical, or epistemic authority (e.g., highly specialised, technical organisms) to non-national private authority (e.g., transnational corporations) to authority within a non-physical jurisdiction context (e.g., moderators in environments such as the Metaverse). Further questions arise: how can we determine such authorities exist? Who is to determine the expertise of such authorities and how? Do they share the same principle of legitimacy as traditional authorities? Are requirements such as the Rule of Law ones applicable to them?

The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars working on these developments to reassess our discourses on authority in light these contemporary challenges posed by transformations in jurisdiction, agency, expertise, personhood, and technology. It seeks to foster dialogue across legal philosophy, political theory, jurisprudence, and adjacent fields (including empirical studies) with the goal of clarifying the conceptual terrain, identifying normative stakes, and developing frameworks that can account for both traditional and newly salient forms of authority.

We especially invite submissions on the following topics, as well as related areas:

• Traditional models of public, comprehensive political authority and their limits
• The articulation of national, regional, and international public authorities
• Limited vs. comprehensive authority; technical/epistemic vs. political/practical authority
• Private and transnational authority (e.g., corporate authority) and its legitimacy
• Authority over (and by) legal persons, nonhuman animals, or nature
• Nonhuman or artificial authorities (e.g., AI systems) and the possibility of authority over human beings
• Authority under conditions of unequal autonomy, agency, or rationality
• The concept and criteria of expertise: who decides, and how?
• Legitimacy and pluralism: whether one principle can justify diverse authorities
• Rule of Law requirements beyond the state: applicability to non-traditional authorities
• Non-physical jurisdictions and governance (e.g., platform moderation and “Metaverse” environments)
• Conceptual, normative, and institutional implications of emerging jurisdictional contexts

The deadline for submissions is 1 June 2026. Submissions will be reviewed and accepted on a rolling basis. Prospective participants are invited to submit a title and an abstract of up to 500 words to the following email address: julieta.rabanos@udg.edu

This workshop is organised within the project supported by Grant RYC2023-043168-I funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the FSE+